From: (Anonymous)	Date: September 3rd, 2003 05:32 am (UTC)		(Link)
Hir

You refer to languages having sex-neutral pronouns yet omit to use the English equivalent. 'One' has fallen into disuse, yet it fills the function you seek. Your example "Where is his/her details?" is inaccurate in that the question is specific. It appears to seek particular defined information when either the sex would be known, or the details would be sought. Your use of the singular 'is' for the plural 'details' makes this more clumsy. A natural question would be 'Where are the details?'. Using 'one', your passage in introduction to your satanic page could read, therefore, "It is an essay about oneself, one's strengths and weaknesses..." or if you prefer, "It is an essay about the individual, and the individual's strengths and weaknesses...". Either perfectly well fits the purpose of communicating meaning. To introduce an artificial construction could appear as posturing. It did to me.

	From: vexen	Date: September 3rd, 2003 05:58 am (UTC)		(Link)
	Re: Hir

You make good points, "one" is underused, I should use it more!

But "Where are hir details" is more accurate than saying "Where are the details" and can lead to less confusion.

All language is artificial construction, and in addition hir isn't my artificial construction, nor is it my posturing, it's just a useful term I've adopted.

English is not a strength of mine, and I underuse "one", and there is nearly always a way of rewording sentences to avoid certain words, but, using "hir" is sometimes plain dirtier and quicker and suits me fine sometimes.

From: (Anonymous)	Date: March 24th, 2005 01:41 pm (UTC)		(Link)
Re: Hir

I struggle with this. In effect it has been supplanted by the use of the word "their" which though originally intended as plural, works well with the modern deconstruction of English. Its ok to say (and write) for example "Remember that person we met last week... what was their name"

forget hir.. use their.

From: (Anonymous)	Date: January 26th, 2008 06:50 pm (UTC)		(Link)
Re: Hir

You must crazy!!!

From: (Anonymous)	Date: June 24th, 2006 12:47 am (UTC)		(Link)

Interesting comments about the use of CE, Common Era (or EV, Era Vulgaris) rather than the loaded AD, Anno Domini. I have less problem with using AD than whether or not to use a capital "C" for christianity, bearing in mind that they have no respect for us, why should we use a capital letter for their religion, as a token of respect? Or just as a token of good grammar?

From: (Anonymous)	Date: July 6th, 2006 07:26 pm (UTC)		(Link)

they have no respect for us

This seems to be rather prejudicial. I am a Christian, and I try to respect the rights of others to believe what they want. In elementary school, I asked why I should capitalize the names of other religions. My answer was simply: out of respect for their religion, as they respect yours, and for for good grammar. To each their own when it comes to using AD or CE; myself, I prefer AD. Then again, if AD were based on Budhisn, I may not want to (oops,w hat I MEANT to say was: as to the AD, use "AD", not "CE", or I'll build a giant space-based lightning-type death ray and incerate your nostril (but I'll leave your sense of smell intact so that you can smell your burnt-nose).).

From: (Anonymous)	Date: August 13th, 2006 01:10 am (UTC)		(Link)
fuller definition of atheist.

"Explicit Atheist (upper case Atheism) means an atheist who understands what a god is, and concludes that none exist
"
Text quoted from "Atheism" by Vexen 2003 Oct 26"

Allow me to bring to your attention the class of atheists which we might label as hostile atheists, meaning emotionally antagonistic to God or to the idea of God, so that they take upon themselves the advocacy of writing against God or the idea of God or the worship of God by theists.

So we can list three kinds of atheists:

1. uninformed atheists as people who don't know about God at all;

2. academic atheiests who study about God and conclude that there is no God;

3. hostile atheists who are emotionally antagonistic to God or to the idea of God, so that they take upon themselves the advocacy of writing against God or the idea of God or the worship of God.

gerry

From: (Anonymous)	Date: September 5th, 2006 01:05 pm (UTC)		(Link)
BC or BCE

Just returned from holiday in Maldives - a full on Islamic Republic. Visited a school on one island - they were learning about Greek and Roman Empires. Dates were defined BC and AD

	From: vexen	Date: November 1st, 2006 04:58 pm (UTC)		(Link)
	Re: BC or BCE

OK, thanks for that interesting tale, good to see you didn't confine yourself to Westernized tourist spots!

From: (Anonymous)	Date: September 11th, 2008 03:02 am (UTC)		(Link)

I dont think i could ever believe anything written by someone with the name of Vexen Crabtree. Very weird.